Racing Point had an unusually strong weekend in Budapest, both Ferraris were lapped for the first time in twelve years and the polesitter won for a sixth consecutive race. Here are some of the more obscure facts from the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix weekend!
An unusually good day for Racing Point in Hungary
Sometimes, teams have bogey tracks. That has been the case for Racing Point at the Hungaroring in recent years. Prior to the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix, the team last scored at the track under their Force India guise in 2017. If you look at the team’s entire history, dating back to its Jordan roots in 1991, the 1999 and 2017 Hungarian Grands Prix are the only Budapest events in which both cars finished in the points. And qualifying has not been much better either. Last year, both Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll were eliminated in Q1, and the team had only ever recorded five Q3 appearances at the track, with a best qualifying position of eighth for Adrian Sutil in 2011.
But 2020 marked a complete turnaround in fortunes. Stroll and Perez locked-out the second row of the grid, with Stroll recording a career-best qualifying result and Perez equalling his best ever grid position. In the race, both drivers finished in the points, with Stroll fourth and Perez seventh. Stroll’s fourth place is the team’s best result at the circuit since Heinz-Harald Frentzen finished fourth at the 1999 Hungarian Grand Prix. In their first 29 appearances at the Hungarian Grand Prix, Jordan, Midland, Spyker, Force India and Racing Point amassed 25 points. Stroll and Perez scored 72% of that total in a single race yesterday.
Not all the Racing Point stats from the weekend were great though – Stroll became the first driver to fail to convert third on the grid at the Hungaroring into a podium finish since Valtteri Bottas in 2014, and Perez became the first Formula 1 driver to score 600 points without taking a single victory in his career. Furthermore, their result remains provisional as the investigation over the legality of the RP20 continues.
First time both Ferraris have been lapped in 12 years
Ferrari’s lacklustre season continued at the Hungarian Grand Prix, with Sebastian Vettel finishing sixth and Charles Leclerc finishing eleventh. It’s the first time neither Ferrari driver has finished on the podium at the Hungarian Grand Prix since 2016, and Leclerc’s eleventh place finish marked the first time that a Ferrari driver has finished outside of the points at the Hungarian Grand Prix without retiring since Felipe Massa finished thirteenth in 2007.
Furthermore, the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix is the first time that both Ferrari drivers have been lapped in a race where both reached the chequered flag since the 2008 British Grand Prix. On that day, Kimi Raikkonen finished a lap down in fourth and Felipe Massa finished thirteenth and last, two laps down, after a number of spins in the challenging conditions.
As the team picked up only eight points from the event, this was Ferrari’s lowest scoring Hungarian Grand Prix since 2009 – before the points scoring system changed to its current format, and in a race which only one of their drivers started. If you re-award points from before 2010 based on the current scoring system, this was Ferrari’s worst race in Hungary since 2003, when Michael Schumacher finished eighth and Rubens Barrichello retired.
Six consecutive wins for the polesitter
The 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix marked only the seventh time in Formula 1 history that six consecutive races have been won from pole position. It’s the first time that the polesitter has won six events in a row since 2006, when the six races between the Spanish and French Grands Prix were all won from the front of the grid.
If the polesitter wins at the 2020 British Grand Prix it will be only the fourth time in Formula 1 that the polesitter has been victorious at seven consecutive World Championship events. The previous times that it has happened are between the 1976 United States West & German Grands Prix, the 1991 Japanese & 1992 San Marino Grands Prix and the 2000 Belgian & 2001 Malaysia Grands Prix.
First time Kimi has qualified last
With last on the grid at the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix, Kimi Raikkonen set the slowest time in a qualifying session on pure pace alone for the first time in his career. It equalled his worst qualifying result, having previously qualified twentieth at the 2003 Spanish Grand Prix, the 2003 Canadian Grand Prix and the 2014 British Grand Prix.
In all of those instances however, there were mitigating factors for Raikkonen being twentieth. In the single lap qualifying session at the 2003 Spanish Grand Prix, Raikkonen spun out and lost time before returning to the pits instead of completing a representative lap time. At the 2003 Canadian Grand Prix, Raikkonen spun at the first corner and started from the pit lane having failed to set a lap time. At the 2014 British Grand Prix, Raikkonen qualified twentieth of the 22 cars on the grid, as both Ferrari drivers were caught out by changeable weather conditions in Q1.
In addition to those occasions, Raikkonen has failed to set a lap time in qualifying three times at the 2004 Bahrain Grand Prix, the 2004 San Marino Grand Prix and the 2006 Bahrain Grand Prix. He was also disqualified after setting the fifth fastest time in qualifying at the 2013 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. But the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix is the first time that Raikkonen has been slowest of all the drivers in a qualifying session with no mitigating factors.
Read more statistics from the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix weekend in our Post Race Statistics article!
